The Early Dynasties of Sumer and Akkad

Eotben Series

i.

THE EARLY DYNASTIES OF SUMER AND AKKAD.

BY

C.

J.

GADD,

B.A.,

Assistant in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British

Museum.

LONDON

LUZAC & 1921.

:

CO.

HARRISON & SONS,

LTD.,

Printers in Ordinary to His Majesty, 44-47, ST.

MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON, W.C.

2.

NOTE. THE for

acquisition of a complete

the foundations of

well-defined

the

in

region

and trustworthy scheme

the oldest history of even one ancient world

no mean

is

and perhaps only those who work

addition to science,

in less favoured fields

can duly appreciate the fortune of

this important respect. Thanks to which date almost entirely from the last ten claim can now be made with confidence for

the Assyriologist in discoveries years, this

of

the early period

history

This short

in Babylonia.

an attempt to utilise the latest available material, essay which seems to afford sufficient indications to furnish at is

an entirely connected scheme of chronology, which rests, not upon conjecture, but upon the evidence of

last

written records, that are, in comparison, almost as old as

the events which they commemorate. forgotten that this

is

Nor must

it

be

due, in very great measure, to the

good fortune which has attended one particular series of excavations, namely, those which have been carried

on

since

Nippur, by of

on

1888,

the

the

site

of

the

ancient

city

of

successive expeditions of the University

Pennsylvania.

In

connection

with

this

the earliest period of Babylonian chronology

I

essay

on

reproduce

NOTE.

VI

another celebrated text which has not hitherto, owing to circumstances of its first appearance, received the

the

careful study that

importance warrants, and

its

en passant, certain other

monuments

I

illustrative

quote,

of this

early period.

My

thanks

are

offered,

firstly,

to the to

for permission

secondly,

to

Sir

due,

and are hereby very heartily

Trustees of the British

Museum,

publish the texts printed herein, and

E.

A. Wallis Budge,

Keeper

of

the

Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, who encouraged me to publish this essay and assisted me in the work.

For a modification of certain statements made on pp. 29 and 37 concerning the Dynasty of Agade, I would refer to an Additional Note which appears at the end of this work. C. >

July ;M, 1921.

J. *

GADD.

THE EARLY DYNASTIES OF SUMER AND AKKAD. CHAPTER

I.

Sources. That the Babylonian

scribes

logical outline of their history

had preserved

at least the

from the Flood

chrono-

until the Persian

conquest had always been inferred from the Greek tradition found in the late excerptors of Berossus.

that native evidence has

But

it is

only in recent years

become

available, in the fragments of standard works on chronology, which appear to have been drawn up and re-copied at the central shrine of Nippur. It is unnecessary here to do more than mention that this evidence

has, until very recently, been constituted by what may be called two groups. The collection of Nippur fragments published by DR. POEBEL (Historical Texts) takes up the history of Babylonia immediately after the Flood, and would, if complete, have continued it to the end of the Isin Dynasty, which immediately

preceded the First Dynasty of Babylon. Such, however, is the to the tablets that all the middle portion of the mains

damage

is completely missing, and a great gap exists 'between the very early Dynasty of Awan and that of Isin, which concludes the list. Other fragments (Nos. 3 and 4) stand isolated in this

text

void with their references to the kingdoms of Agade and Gutium f but their relative position could not, without other information, have been fixed. Fortunately, some such information existed in the second of those groups of evidence mentioned above. The tablet published by FATHER SCHEIL in 191 1, 1 apparently a First

Dynasty extract from the Isin works at Nippur, not merely adjusted, as it were, the focus of these two early kingdoms of Agade

and Gutium, but carried the chronology back three dynasties 1

Comptes rtndus de VAcadtmic des Inscriptions 1911, >

p.

606

et sqq.

A

2

THE EARLY DYNASTIES OF SUMER AND AKKAD.

beyond them, thus filling a considerable portion of the great <empty space which followed the earliest kingdoms on the Nippur With these materials DR. POEBEL was able to offer a prolists. visional reconstruction of Babylonian chronology from after the Flood until the end of the Isin Dynasty.

Since the time cf that publication, therefore, the position has such as may be thus briefly summarised. Disregarding the legendary kings "before the Flood," our information began

'b'een

.apparently with the First Dynasty "after" that event, which was This was followed by a dynasty of .assigned to the city of Kish.

by one of Ur, after which there existed a Awan, though few details of it were preserved. Then kingdom came a considerable gap, over which it was obviously necessary Uruk, and

this again

of

to distribute a number of kings already known, but nothing more than conjecture could determine their place or the number of On the other side of this gap the list was retheir dynasties.

sumed

abruptly by the SCHEIL tablet at the dynasty of Akshak,

and

carried on, with only a slight break, to the beginning of Gutium. Of this last dynasty fragments of the names of two "kings

were preserved by No. 4 of Historical Texts^

another, but

much

the well-known

smaller,

was thus

("The Flood") Dynasty of Kish

Uruk

ofUr I

of

which

kingdom of Ur inaugurated by Ur-Engur.

position, therefore,

of

after

gap intervened before the opening of

Awan

{First great %ap.)

Dynasty of Aksbak of Kish

The

:

of

Uruk

of

Agade

of

Uruk

of Gutium (Second smaller gap.)

Dynasty of Ur.

(Ur-Engur)

of Isin

CHAPTER

The

tablet

II.

B.M.

108857.

Before proceeding to any consideration of some striking new evidence which has recently appeared it is desirable to present again an important constituent of that which was already known, both to secure convenience of reference, and also to exhibit one or two

points of received comment.

some importance which have not

The

king

list

first

hitherto

published by SCHEIL in

1911, as noted above, belonged to a private collection, and was merely lent to him by the owner that he might make known the

SCHEIL subsecontents of a text so fundamentally important. quently discovered that the tablet, broken at the lower edge, had been dishonestly "restored" by the addition of an alien fragment, and discovered also that this attempted join had concealed traces of the

name

of Shar-gali-sharri, a well-known king of Agade.

In

view of these facts, he gave a new photographic reproduction of the tablet, accompanied by a note, in the Revue d'Assyriologie,

Meantime, the tablet had also been seen and M. THUREAU-DANGIN, who re-edited it with important copied by comments in his recent work, La Chronologic des dynasties de Sumer et tfAccad, p. 59, 60. Shortly before the late war this tablet came into the possession of the British Museum, and is here Vol.

IX, 69.

re-published as the i

and

follows

2).

The

result

text

of

may be

still

further

examination (Plates

transliterated

and

translated

:

OBVERSE. 1.

2.

aksak-(Ki)-a

kalam-zi lugal-dm

At Akshak

Kalam-zi, being king,

Kalam-da-lu-lu

Kalam-dalulu

xxx mu

in-ag

reigned 30 years.

xn mu

in-ag

reigned 12 years.

A

2

as

THE EARLY DYNASTIES OF SUMER AND AKKAD.

4 3.

ur-ur

vi

4.

5.

xx mu

dt

puzur- sahan Puzur-Sahan

in-ag reigned 20 years.

xxiv

i-su-il

Ishuil 6.

su- d

-

Gimil

mu

in-ag reigned 6 years.

Ur-ur

mu

in-ag

reigned 24 years.

men dumu

in-ag

reigned 7 years.

mu-bi xcix in-ag-es

vi lugal-e-ne

7.

vn mu

i-su-il-ge

son of Ishuil

(?)-Sin,

6 kings, their years that they reigned were 99. 8.

aksak-(K/)-a bal-bi ba-kur nam-lugal-bi Kis-(Ki)-u ba-tum

At Akshak 9.

Kis-(Ki)-a

rule

its

kit

d ba-u -

was changed;

At Kish Ku-Bau, hostess of a 10.

its

sal lii-kas-din-na

royalty

tavern,

c mu in-ag reigned 100 years.

lugal-dm

puzur

d zuen -

Puzur-Sin, 12.

dumu ku d ba-u-ge son of Ku-Bau

xxv mu

-

in-ag

reigned 25 years.

ur d ilbaba dumu puzur d zuen-ge

vi

-

-

| u^Kislf

suhus Kis-(Ki] mu-un-gi-na

(and) being queen IT.

was

mu

in-ag reigned 6 years.

Ur-Ilbaba, son of Puzur-Sin

xxx mu

13. zi-mu-dar

Zimudar

in-ag

reigned 30 years.

UHU.Ki

1.

For

2.

With this king's name cf. Liigal-afo-/, an early king of Adab, (Banks Bismya 196). Ur-ur is actually the true reading, as suggested by THUREAU-DANGIN. For Puzur as the reading of the signs hitherto transcribed BA-&A sec

the reading of Chronologic p. 6l.

as

ak-Sa-ak

see

THUREAU-DANGIN,

y

3. 4.

finally

SCHROEDER,

(sa-fra-an) 12.

Zeitschrift

fur AssyriologU xxxm,

Cuneiform Texts XXI V,

* ZA-MAL-MAL to be read il-ba-ba Assur verschied. Inhalts. 46, 9.

8, ;

55.

d

M{/$

1 1.

SCHROEDER,

Ktilschrifttexte

aus

THE TABLET 14.

dumu

u-zi-wa-dar

B.M.

108857.

15.

1 6.

mu

vi

zi-mu-dar-ra-ge

Uzi-wadar, son of Zimudar

in-ag

reigned 6 years.

mu

el-mu-ti

xi

Elmuti

reigned

i-mu d samas

xi

Imu-Shamash

reigned

-

mu

Naniah

years.

in-ag

n

mu

in

17. na-ni-ia-ah

in-ag

n

years.

in-ag

reigned 3 years.

vin lugal-t-ne mu-bi DLXXXVI

1 8.

in-ag-e

8 kings, their years that they reigned were 586. 19.

bal-bi ba-kur nam-lugal-bi unu(g)-(Ki)-su

KIS-(KI).

(At) Kish 20.

its

rule

.

i

lugal mu-bi

xxv

in-ag

in-ag

king, his years that he reigned

its

rule

23. a-ga-dt-(Ki)-a

At Agade

17.

xxv mu

were 25.

unu(g)-(Ki)-ga bal-bi ba-kur \nam-lugal\-bi a-ga-de-(KJ)-u ba-tum

At Uruk

24.

royalty was {

Lugal-zaggissi, being king, reigned 25 years.

21. i

its

;

lugal-zag-gi-si lugal-dm

unu(g)-(Ki)-ga

At Uruk

22

was changed

ba-tum

was changed

;

its

royalty was {

$ar-ru-Ki-in

?-ba-ni

Sharru-kin

.........

unto^ade

nu-gis-ar a gardener.

qa-su-dii

ur d ilbaba

cup-bearer

of Ur-Ilbaba,

-

THUREAU-DANGIN

(loc.

suggests

cit.)

Nania zadim, "Nania,

the

gem-

engraver." 23. After the

name of Sharru-kin

possible to decide it is

extremely probable that

the braces might indicate doubtful. 24.

UR d

-

there

what sign was

ilbaba^ not

Ed

-

ilbaba

;

this

si.

is

a break in the surface and

originally written.

LU

is

was preceded by something

The reading

it is

not

certain, but else,

and

must, however, remain

a point of considerable significance.

THE EARLY DYNASTIES OF SUMER AND AKKAD 25-

26.

lugal a-ga-de-(Ki) \lii a-ga-de-(Kj) king of Agade, [who]

26.

The

mu

i\n-ag.

reign [ed 55 years]

restorations, in square brackets, are from the photographs in

Musctim Journal of the 176

(T)\-du-a

build[ed Agade]

LV

\lugal-dm [being king]

25

mu-un-da

&

University of

178.

REVERSE.

Pennsylvania,

The

Dec., 1920,

THE TABLET 10. nam-lugal-bi

ba-tum

unto Uruk

was carried

At Uruk

in-ag reigned 6 years. vi mu in-ag reigned 6 years.

Kud-da

Kudda



08 years

1

4 (or) 6 kings

(a shep herd)

UR

SECOND KINGDOM OF

{6 kings unknown)

Etana

356 years

3 kings

2,700

(?)

kings

KINGDOM OF Lugal-anna-mundu

ADAB 90

(?)

years

Lugal-da-lu

Me-shi

.

(number of kings doubtful) 90 years indicates that the king

was succeeded by

his son.

TABLE OF EARLY DYNASTIES.

MARI

KINGDOM OF

Anpu

AFTER THE FLOOD. 37

30 years (and other kings)

-Ur-Nina of Lagash

(summary doubtful)

KINGDOM OF

(?)

AKSHAK

Kalam-zi

30 years

Kalam-dalulu

12

,,

6

Ur-ur

Puzur-Sahan

20

Ishuil,

24

Gimil Sin

7

6 kings

99

FOURTH KINGDOM OF

KISH KINGDOM OF

Ku-Bau,

AGADE

Puzur-Sin,

Ur-Ilbaba 55 years

Sharru-kin,

THIRD KINGDOM OF

6

URUK

Elmuti

1 1

Rim ush

15 years

Manishtusu

(?)

44

Igigi.

Imi. It

Elulu. ulu. J

12 kings

54) years

1

21

Dudu, Shudurkib

(?

24

Nanum.

(?)

Urukagina

30

8 kings

Naram-Sin

years

Zimudar, Uziwadar

Imi-Shamash Nania

Shar-gali-sharri

?

25 6

15

197

n

Lugal-zaggisi 25 years

3

92

+ years

i

king

25 years

38

THE EARLY DYNASTIES OF SUMER AND AKKAD.

FOURTH KINGDOM OF

URUK

Ur-nigin

3 years

Ur-gigir

6

Kudda

6

Puzur-ili

5

Ur-Utu

6

5 kings

26

KINGDOM OF

GUTIUM

Imbia

5 years

Ingishu

7

Warlagaba

6 ?

larlagash

(17 more

kings, including:

-Nammaljni of

Umma

(and Lagash

?)

Erridu-pizir

Lasirab

Sium Gudea,

Saratigubisin

of Lagash

Tirigan)

21 kings

i24(? 5) years, 40 days

FIFTH KINGDOM OF

URUK

Utu-hegal

(Summary

doubtful)

THIRD KINGDOM OF

UR

Ur-Engur w #&

18 years

Dungi

58

Bur-Sin I

9

Gimil-Sin

7

Ibi-Sm

25

5 kings

117

-Ur-Ningirsu, son of of Lagash

Gudea

-Zariku, Sakkanakku of

Ashur

TABLE OF EARLY DYNASTIES.

AFTER THE FLOOD. 39

P4 rt

'^

s i s

_2

13

h o

Ii 1^ M PQ

w

PQ

2

s

S 3

=f

-s^ P 3 S S ^ s co co

CO


co

*4

1 I

APPENDIX. IN the preceding pages, and in the list of dynasties, any attempt It may, to fix absolute chronology has been purposely avoided. however, be pointed out that the reconstruction of the Assyrian king list, combined with the chronological notes given by various Assyrian kings, and the known synchronisms with the first

dynasty of Babylon, offer a new and promising means of approaching the early dynasties of Sumer and Akkad. Thus, Esarhaddon (B.C. 681-668) records 1 that Shalmaneser I lived

580 years before his time, i.e., 680 + 580 = 1260 B.C. roughly. But Shalmaneser I himself states 2 that one Shamshi-Adad preceded him by 580 years, and that Irishum lived 159 years before this Shamshi-Adad.

Irishum, according to

about

B.C.

2000.

By

addition, therefore, the date of

Shalmaneser

Tukulti-Enurta

I,

I,

was 12604-580+159, son of Shalmaneser

been assigned on other grounds to the period about

B.C.

I,

/'.